Many people in Second Life subdivide the land to have the ability to view more than one streaming media source at one time on their virtual land. It can be a slideshow, a video or other source that is uploaded on your website and then streamed into Second Life. This is particularly important when you are using your site for online education, since you can have multiple training/learning modules for your students.
Here is how you parcellize, and only the land owner has the permissions to do this:
Click with the right mouse button on the ground and then left click the "edit terrain feature."
It will open a window which allows you to choose a portion of your land.
The selection tool works by pointing at the land and dragging a square big enough for what you intend to do there. Then click subdivide and the parcel is created. You do not need to parcellize a very large area, it can just be an area large enough for perhaps just a screen.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Graphic Files in Second Life and creating Powerpoint slides
Graphics file formats supported in SL:
TGA, JPG and BMP, and now PNG. The ones that support transparency are TGA and PNG for creating items like clothing and objects such as windows.
Second Life pictures that you shoot from Second Life are BMP files and should be converted to other file formats because they use up so much memory.
Many people use Photoshop to create TGA and PNG files, but some thrifty educators use the free GIMPshop and Paint.NET (which just added support for saving 24-bit PNGs).
If you are in a hurry and it doesn’t matter if you have transparency or not, here is a simple solution to obtain JPG images for SL uses:
Create a Powerpoint presentation. Then when you save it, click “save as JPG.” This saves all the slides in the presentation as individual JPG images in a single folder. Then, from SL, you click Upload, then “bulk.” You browse your computer’s folders, find your folder and then hold down the Ctrl key to choose your files. Or, you can choose the first slide, then scroll to the last slide and press the Shift key to highlight all of them.
Many educators use this method, since they still have the original Powerpoint presentation to use in RL, while they have the same slides in SL. This enables them to use the same material between RL and SL. There is a charge of 10 Lindens per slide. This quick method is useful for creating signs to use in SL also, but ensure that the text is larger than 24 points so that they are easy to read.
When hosting an event in SL using slides, the area supporting the event will usually give instructions to the presenters a week prior to the event. The presenters usually give them a SLURL to the area and a “practice” area with a slideshow viewer so they can practice uploading their slides and using their presentation. They also designate a small area where they are allowed to place their posters and graphics.
TGA, JPG and BMP, and now PNG. The ones that support transparency are TGA and PNG for creating items like clothing and objects such as windows.
Second Life pictures that you shoot from Second Life are BMP files and should be converted to other file formats because they use up so much memory.
Many people use Photoshop to create TGA and PNG files, but some thrifty educators use the free GIMPshop and Paint.NET (which just added support for saving 24-bit PNGs).
If you are in a hurry and it doesn’t matter if you have transparency or not, here is a simple solution to obtain JPG images for SL uses:
Create a Powerpoint presentation. Then when you save it, click “save as JPG.” This saves all the slides in the presentation as individual JPG images in a single folder. Then, from SL, you click Upload, then “bulk.” You browse your computer’s folders, find your folder and then hold down the Ctrl key to choose your files. Or, you can choose the first slide, then scroll to the last slide and press the Shift key to highlight all of them.
Many educators use this method, since they still have the original Powerpoint presentation to use in RL, while they have the same slides in SL. This enables them to use the same material between RL and SL. There is a charge of 10 Lindens per slide. This quick method is useful for creating signs to use in SL also, but ensure that the text is larger than 24 points so that they are easy to read.
When hosting an event in SL using slides, the area supporting the event will usually give instructions to the presenters a week prior to the event. The presenters usually give them a SLURL to the area and a “practice” area with a slideshow viewer so they can practice uploading their slides and using their presentation. They also designate a small area where they are allowed to place their posters and graphics.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Textures for a Virtual World - Second Life software
There are several popular programs to create virtual textures in Second Life: Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, and GIMP. The most affordable for online education and distance learning is GIMP, since it is free. You just have to decide if it is worth the learning the program to create your own or just to buy textures other Second Life people have already created. They all have different attributes, while Photoshop has the most features and is the most expensive.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
New Second Life Build - Online@UCF (formerly CDWS)
Dear Folks, I just completed a new Second Life site for the Course Development and Web Services (CDWS) department at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Some of the features include a Holodeck, an Educational Games area, a Getting Started area, Educator Tools and Resources area, a 3D data area, and other exhibits. Feel free to visit and let me know what you think.
Here is the SLURL :http://slurl.com/secondlife/Arts%20and%20Letters/214/186/22/
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